Today's fifteen thousand private military contractors are the equivalent of the hired guns of the Old West. With the military having shrunk by one-third since the Cold War, the Pentagon has had to rely increasingly on these men. The ballooning private military business has its share of detractors, calling for more regulation after a number of murders and kidnappings of security contractors in war zones showed just how dangerous this job can be. A Bloody Business: War Zone Contractors in Iraq: Blackwater, Halliburton's KBR, and More
is an unprecedented look inside current contractor operations in the most dangerous places on the planet. It covers their thoughts, their families, their backgrounds, their motivations, their preparation and their stories of wars past and present.